Independent economist, Jim Power, says the market is now slowing down from previous exceptionally strong levels to what is regarded as “more sensible and sustainable levelsâ€
look at the figures in the table at the bottom , don’t bother reading the spin.
Here are some of the figures
Q3 04 to Q1 07 Q1 06 to Q1 07 Q4 06 to Q1 07
ALL PROPERTIES +29.3% +10.5% -3.0%
NEW PROPERTIES +29.6% +12.3% -1.1%
2ND HAND PROPERTIES +28.6% +8.7% -3.4%
So prices are up from 3 years ago? nobody s disputing that. They are now dropping 3 percent a qurter or 12 percent a year.
These are asking prices .Everyone knows that on the way up prices were going for more than the asking price and now prices are going for less than the asking price. So it can be read from this that prices are dropping by more than 12 percent a year!! That is some soft landing
Big colour pullout spread in the Irish Times today, must have cost a fortune. They’ve for some reason taken prices from Nov 2004 to present as the one on which to base graphs 
What the hell is this nonsense?
Prices up 30% over nearly 3 years? Old news. 10% over a year? Yes, we all remember the spurt early 2006.
Tell us something new, like what’s happening right now.
I notice that Myhome describe Power as quote ‘an independent economist’. This is either a misprint or a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth. Mr Power is in fact in the employ of Friends First as a spokesman/economist. Friends First is a financial services organisation which sells investment funds including property funds. From their web site.
friendsfirst.ie/trackrecord.shtml
Myhome I suppose are a commercial organisation in the business of making a profit and therefore can be excused manipulating the facts a little.
“over 8,000 properties that had been advertised on MyHome.ie were sold or sale agreed”
We all know that sale agreed is not worth a sh1t.
This is getting hilarious altogether, trying to tell us that prices are up 30% over the past few years, what good is that to a person buying now?
I think Friends First are commercial and retail property only, so they are relatively independent - although no Irish financial institution is completely indepdendent, because their performance is mostly tied to the general performance of the Irish economy.
In short, no-one should welcome a crash for it’s own sake, it will hurt us all in some way. Some of us feel though that an excess has built (the bubble) and it is better to deal with it now and take the pain, rather than allowing it to inflate even more and cause even more damage.
Looks to me like the last throw of the dice from the VI sub-humans. Any remote shred of credibilty they may have had has gone up in smoke with them beginning their analysis in this report from 2004. They really bring new meaning to the word “deception.”
They WILL changed it because, growth figures from Q2 2004 to Q2 2007, will show similar increases. However the annualised figure from Q2 2006 to Q 2007 will show no growth.
It will become increasingly difficult for the VI to hide;
Q2 2005 to Q2 2006 cira 18% growth
Q2 2006 to Q2 2007 < 2% growth.
Is anyone feeling a bit lathargic recently with the hot weather? 
You mean no one should create the conditions that will almost guarantee that a crash will happen. No one should pursue policies, lend money, issue statements etc. that will reap economic and human misery. The bubble is or was the problem the bubble and the inevitable outcome of all bubbles.
Couldn’t agree more Duplex. Makes me sick to hear VI’s attempting to *blame * those with a less than optimistic view on the property market for bringing about the crash just because they openly express a different view.
Surely we all know the crash has nothing whatsoever to do with greedy EA’s, opportunistic lenders and an incompetent government. No! not at all! 
edited to add ‘incompetent government’. I want to see them gone.
Agreed ! All this property boom is nothing more than pyramid selling and we all know what happens when that particular merrygoround stops spinning. Nothing short of greed fuelled the property boom. For those strong enough to ignore pressures from family , friends , banks , gov. from buying too high my admiration. For those who succumbed , my sympathies. For investors who are levered to the max , I’ll wave to you as you stand on the bread line 
This report reminds me of Disco Stu from the Simpsons
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Stu
“Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue…ayyyyy!”
Myhome report is indeed a bit of a joke!
- No mention anywhere of what methodology they use. Probably just simple =average(…) in excel!!! For this kind of stuff, as PTSB and Daft.ie know, you need hedonic price regressions with fixed weights to ensure there’s no drift in the average prices.
Any budding economist or statistician worth his salt would want to put his name to something that obviously took some time to put together - is there a name there? Not at all. (Power is only the headline commentator, brought in at the end of the process.) Jim Miley probably excelled it up to the max!
- Check out page 10. In the Tallaght “% growth graph” (in the right-hand column), four of the six percentages are negative. You’d never know from their graphical representation.
This has to be a new low. In fact, none of the market spotlight % growth graphs have a Y-axis (let alone be put in the same graph or using comparable Y-axes in all graphs, that’d be far too sensible)!
When the facts don’t support your happy story, just leave them out and put in some nice shiny red and yellow houses that look tall!!
- Lastly, as other people have pointed out, if Daft.ie or PTSB or anyone not compromised had released this report, the headline would have most certainly been about all segments except new 3-bed semi-d’s falling in the last three months by up to -3.4%!
And wait a sec, new 3-bed semi’s AVERAGED just €287k in Q4 2006? Seems a bit low doesn’t it?
And what kind of group of categories is this anyway?
All - new, secondhand
Apartments - 1-bed, 2-bed
3-bed semi-d - new, second-hand
and a mix 'em gather 'em of other property types.
Seems like somebody’s suffering from small sample problems!
****Stop the press! ****Just spotted a very interesting story that didn’t seem to make their press release! Page 9, market spotlight on Dublin South City Centre. Check out the graph on the right hand side, again suffering from a lack of an axis and no apparent relationship between the rates of change and the size of the little house graphics… and I’m not surprised.
Firstly, it’s annual, Q1 to Q1 (not Q3 or Q4 to Q1 which could be dismissed as seasonal). Secondly, every segment in Dublin bar 2-bed apartment is down in year-on-year terms! I wonder why they don’t give the Q4 2006 to Q1 2007 figures… Afraid of scaring the market?!
Friends First and property …
Well, as an investments organisation, FF and their parent Eureko, will have exposure to the banking and property sectors.
Mind you, as an independent economist, Mr. Power’s organisation did quite well in the sector at the Money Mate awards in March …
Best Property Investment Company – Friends First
pressreleaseireland.com/2007 … d-winners/
totally impartial and independent … hmmmmm
Blue Horseshoe
I think we’ll have to rename it ‘sorrygoround’.
